The Year of Rice and Salt

On the winter solstice, a sunny warm day like all the rest, the Miwok invited Kheim and I Chen into their temple, a little round thing like a dwarves' pagoda, the floor sunken into the earth and the whole thing covered with sod, the weight of which was held up by some tree trunks forking up into a nest of branches. It was like being in a cave, and only the fire's light and the smoky sun shafting down through a smokehole in the roof illuminated the dim interior. The men were dressed in ceremonial feather headdresses and many shell necklaces, which gleamed in the firelight. To a constant drum rhythm they danced round the fire, taking turns as night followed day, going on until it seemed to the stupefied Kheim that they might never stop. He struggled to stay awake, feeling the importance of the event for these men who looked somehow like the animals they fed on. This day marked the return of the sun, after all. But it was hard to stay awake. Eventually he struggled to his feet and joined the younger dancers, and they made room for him as he galumphed about, his sea legs bandying out to the sides. On and on he danced, until it felt right to collapse in a corner, and only emerge at the last part of dawn, the sky fully lit, the sun about to burst over the hills backing the bay. The happy loose limbed band of dancers and drummers was led by a group of the young unmarried women to their sweat lodge, and in his stupefied state Kheim saw how beautiful the women were, supremely strong, as robust as the men, their feet unbound and their eyes clear and without deference – indeed they appeared to laugh heartily at the weary men as they escorted them into the steam bath, and helped them out of their headdresses and finery, making what sounded like ribald commentary to Kheim, though it was possible he was only making it up out of his own desire. But the burnt air, the sweat pouring out of him, the abrupt clumsy plunge into their little river, blasting him awake in the morning light; all only increased his sense of the women's loveliness, beyond anything he could remember exper encing in China, where a sailor was always being taken by the precious blown flower girls in the restaurants. Wonder and lust and the river's chill battled his exhaustion, and then he slept on the beach in the sun.

He was back on the flagship when I Chen came to him, mouth tight. 'One of them died last night. They brought me to see. It was the pox.'

'What! Are you sure?'

I Chen nodded heavily, as grim as Kheim had ever seen him.

Kheim rocked back. 'We will have to stay on board the ships.'

'We should leave,' I Chen said. 'I think we brought it to them.'

'But how? No one had pox on this trip.'

'None of the people here have any pox scars at all. I suspect it is new to them. And some of us had it as children, as you can see. Li and Peng are heavily pocked, and Peng has been sleeping with one of the local women, and it was her child died of it. And the woman is sick too.'

'No.'

'Yes. Alas. You know what happens to wild people when a new sickness arrives. I've seen it in Aozhou. Most of them die. The ones who don't will be balanced against it after that, but they may still be able to tip others of the unexposed off their balance, I don't know. In any case, it's bad.'

They could hear little Butterfly squealing up on the deck, playing some game with the sailors. Kheim gestured above. 'What about her?'

'We could take her with us, I suppose. If we return her to shore, she'll probably die with the rest.'

'But if she stays with us she may catch it and die too.'

'True. But I could try to nurse her through it.'

Kheim frowned. Finally he said, 'We're provisioned and watered. Tell the men. We'll sail south, and get in position for a spring crossing back to China.'

Before they left, Kheim took Butterfly and rowed up to the village's beach and stopped well offshore. Butterfly's father spotted them and came down quickly, stood knee deep in the slack tidal water and said something. His voice croaked, and Kheim saw the pox blisters on him. Kheim's hands rowed the boat out a stroke.

'What did he say?' he asked the girl.

'He said people are sick. People are dead.'

Kheim swallowed. 'Say to him, we brought a sickness with us.'

She looked at him, not comprehending.

'Tell him we brought a sickness with us. By accident. Can you say that to him? Say that.'

She shivered in the bottom of the boat.

Suddenly angry, Kheim said loudly to the Miwok headman, 'We brought a disease with us, by accident!'

Ta Ma stared at him.

'Butterfly, please tell him something. Say something.'

She raised her head up and shouted something. Ta Ma took two steps out, going waist deep in the water. Kheim rowed out a couple of strokes, cursing. He was angry and there was no one to be angry at.

'We have to leave!' he shouted. 'We're leaving! Tell him that,' he said to Butterfly furiously. 'Tell him!'

She called out to Ta Ma, sounding distraught.